Gold, silver medal winners ready to rejoin Canucks

Sweden's Daniel Sedin (front) vies with Switzerland's Yannick Weber during the Men's Ice Hockey Group C match at the Bolshoy Ice Dome at the Sochi Winter Olympics on February 14, 2014 in Sochi.

Photograph by: JONATHAN NACKSTRAND
, AFP/Getty Images

VANCOUVER – John Tortorella's boys are coming back from Sochi and that's really all the Vancouver Canuck head coach has wanted since the team resumed practising last Wednesday minus its seven Olympians.

Defenceman Yannick Weber was the first to arrive and skated with the group on Saturday. He was fighting the 12-hour time change and warned that it won't be easy for the four Canuck gold-medal game participants – Roberto Luongo, Dan Hamhuis, Daniel Sedin and Alex Edler – who were slated to depart Sochi late Sunday night.

“Going to Sochi from New York wasn't too bad but coming back was quite the hike,” said Weber, the Swiss native. “It's tough to adjust. I mean, it's 12 hours. I know the guys who played in the gold-medal game will go on the plane around midnight, or whatever, and sleep on the plane. It's not going to be easy. I'm sure the first week will be tough. But we had the same thing going over there. We only had two days before we played.

“So you just have to relax and try to sleep on the plane as much as possible and try to get into rhythm,” Weber continued. “I think playing and practising will help a lot. If you have too much free time, you tend to sleep. It's not going to be easy, especially when you've played in a gold-medal game. But that's part of it. We knew it was going to be a tight schedule.”

New Canuck defenceman Raphael Diaz, also from Switzerland, was allowed to stop off in Montreal to collect his personal belongings and will be at Monday's practice. Tortorella said he would chat with the gold-medal game players, plus bronze medal game participant Ryan Kesler of Team USA, about their return to practice.

The Canucks, losers of seven straight, will see their first post-Olympic action Wednesday night at home against the St. Louis Blues.

“All our guys will be back here for the game and I will need to rely on them for how they feel,” Tortorella said following Saturday's practice at Rogers Arena. “Webs looked like hell today, not on the ice but when he came in. The best thing for him was to skate and try to stay up. So I'm going to leave it up to those guys as far as the Tuesday practice. We'll see how they feel and go from there.”

Tortorella created a bit of stir Saturday – nothing new for him – when he declared he wanted Sweden to prevail in the gold-medal game with Daniel Sedin and Edler filling the Canadian net.

It was all in the context of the two Swedes returning to Tortorella's lineup brimming with confidence. It was also said in the belief that Luongo and Hamhuis weren't going to see the ice for Team Canada. Luongo, of course, backed up Carey Price in the 3-0 Canadian victory while Hamhuis played just 1:04 after not playing at all in the semi-final.

“I hope Danny scores two and Edler gets three assists and Sweden wins so they come back feeling good about themselves because it's going to help us,” Tortorella explained. “That's all I'm concerned about right now.”

Daniel had three shots in the gold-medal game but was minus-2 and turned over the puck on Chris Kunitz's back-breaking third-period goal. Edler had one shot and was even. Kesler probably wasn't feeling good about the finish to his Olympic experience after the Americans were embarrassed 5-0 by the Finns in Saturday's bronze-medal match.

Tortorella claimed he wasn't worried about Kesler's psyche.

“I know Kess will be a horse for us,” said Torts. “He'll be ready to play. It's the other two guys who are important for us and need to get going.”

Daniel Sedin hasn't scored for the Canucks in 19 games while Edler is a minus-23, fifth worst in the league.

On the injury front, Canuck captain Henrik Sedin (ribs) skated for the full practice Saturday – the team was off Sunday – while Kevin Bieksa (foot) started but didn't finish the Saturday workout. Alex Burrows (hand) and Chris Tanev (thumb) were again absent from the main group. Of the latter two, Tortorella noted that Burrows was closer to being ready.

“Burrows, I think, is progressing,” said the coach. “Tanev, I'm not sure where he's at. I don't think he's ready to practise with us even starting next week. Our whole philosophy with the injured guys is to get them ready for that Wednesday game.

“Kevin wanted to stay on. I kicked him off. He had a good skate Friday. He's been skating well on his own. The whole group has a day off Sunday so, hopefully, the day off and getting him off the ice early (Saturday) will help him for Monday.”

ICE CHIPS: The Canucks are expected to summon at least one player, if not more, from their Utica Comets farm team for Tuesday's practice. The Comets just finished playing three games in three days, winning the first two and losing the third Sunday in Albany, N.Y., by a 2-1 count... According to Tortorella, defenceman Andrew Alberts “still has problems" and is "aways away” after suffering a concussion Dec. 29 in Calgary.

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